The commissions era at LiA begins, and it’s quite a significant moment for me.  First of all, let me thank longtime supporter and friend of the site Nadavu for being my first client.  This post is literally made possible by his support.    So what happens next?  Well, that’s up to you.  I’ve set up a project for Mouryou no Hako at Ko-fi – if you’d like to see continued coverage of the series (which is 13 episodes in total) that’s how you can make it happen.  For every $100 pledged, I’ll cover three additional episodes.  Hopefully we can get the entire series blogged (the last episode, should we get there, would be $35 – I’ll throw in the 14th “extra” ep for free).

(Spoiler: I quite enjoyed these first three episodes, which was what Nadavu commissioned me to write about.)

Nadavu’s request was for coverage on Mouryou no Hako, a 2008 Madhouse adaptation of a 1995 supernatural mystery by well-known novelist Kyogoku Natsuhiko.  I was already a pretty serious anime fan by then, but I confess I knew almost nothing about this show apart from that it was a Madhouse production.  As to the source material, Kyogoku-sensei is a pretty big name, and this book had already received a manga and live-action film adaptation by the time the anime came around.  It’s a bit complicated for me to write about series I’ve never seen, but the pedigree was more than interesting enough for me to take the project “on spec”, as it were.

2008 was very much the height of Madhouse’s glory days as a studio. Murayama Masao and all the big names were still present, and the studio was keeping a very ambitious and prolific production schedule.  Mouryou no Hako looks great for a 2008 series, for starters.  The backgrounds are lovely, and the hand-drawn animation is fluid and attractive.  I also quite like the piano-heavy soundtrack by Murai Shusei, which fits the creepy source material like a glove.  In terms of overall vibe, I was immediately put in mind of Mars Red in that the show plays very much as if it were a filming of a stage play rather than a traditional anime.  In terms of setting it certainly does things a stage play could never do, but the narrative is very much driven by people – usually two of them – talking to each other.

It’s already clear from the first two episodes that a lot of characters are going to passing through the spotlight.  That can be a challenge in that with characters designs by CLAMP, some of the are pretty hard to tell apart.  We open in 1947 Kanagawa with a scene on a train, where a man wakes to find himself sitting opposite another, talking to a box on his lap.  When it answers him any doubt that we’re on a supernatural journey is erased, and the man opens the box to reveal the head of a young woman inside.  “Yes, she’s alive” he says – as if there could be any doubt based on her actions.

In flashback the narrative turns to two young girls, Kusumoto Yoriko (Takahashi Mikako) and Yuzuki Kanako (Tomatsu Haruka).  Yoriko lives with her mother – who makes dolls’ heads for a dollmaker she’s also dating – and generally despises her.  Kanako is smart, beautiful, and erudite – all things Yoriko believes  she’s not – and Yoriko quickly falls in love with her.  There are illicit moonlight dances, and strange conversations that dwell on topics like death and reincarnation.  Kanako tells Yoriko that the two of them are the same person, and talks Yoriko into a late-night train trip to a distant lake.  But that night finds Kanako falling in front of a train and suffering serious (though not to the head, it’s conspicuously noted) injuries.

The tenor of the story changes totally in the aftermath, as a Tokyo police detective called Kiba (Seki Takaaki) takes center-stage. With the local rail cops hopelessly clueless he takes command of the situation, trying to get the facts out of the hysterical Yoriko.  Kanako is rushed off to surgery and her party arrives – a twitchy dude who refers to himself as her guardian, her glamorous former actress older sister, and a argumentative suit (lawyer?) named Maasuoka (Miki Shin’ichirou), who hardly seems distraught at the girl’s condition.  Kaneko survives, and the sister orders her transferred to another hospital where her friend (a “famous surgeon”) works.  One can start to make some guesses about where this might be headed (pun intended).

Yet another group then assumes the spotlight.  A young girl, a novelist, and his driver.  They don’t stick around long for the moment – just long enough to stumble on a highly secure location somewhere in the woods, where their car is swarmed by armed soldiers.  Kiba is also present – and he and the writer clearly know each other.  But soon we change sightlines again – seemingly backwards in time, to just after the accident.  Kanako has been brought to a hospital called “the box” (the reason is obvious).  The locals whisper that no patient who entered it has come alive, and there are hints that something very sinister is going on there.

All sorts of other tidbits are dropped here –  a ransom note Kanako’s sister has been hiding from Kiba, a vision Kanaka has of being dissected by demons, Yoriko’s mother becoming convinced that their house is haunted by an evil spirit and hiring a quack exorcist to get rid of it.  It strikes me that what we’re seeing at this point is a string of unreliable narrators – people who may or may not be crazy or outright lying.  It’s a pretty classic mystery approach, which fits since Kyogoku is a pretty classic mystery writer.  We’re at the kitchen sink stage of the story now, where a lot of distractions are being paraded in front of us, but the box theme keeps repeating itself over and over so it’s safe to say the truth lies somewhere in that direction.

On balance I liked these first three episodes quite a lot.  They’re extremely dialogue-heavy – as I said, it’s rather like watching a filming of a stage play – but the core mystery is quite an interesting one and the writing and direction is pretty sharp.  I’d certainly be open to going further – if Mouryou no Hako were airing today it would be a strong candidate for coverage.  Please click the link in the post (or the sidebar) if you’d like to support this project!